There’s a pattern emerging in my life that I’m trying to stop. It’s a series of questions my husband asks me when he gets home from work.
Do you want wine?
Red or White?
Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc?
It drives me nuts. I know it sounds silly but here’s the back story. Every day I choose what we are having for dinner and make it. I don’t call him up at work and ask green vegetables or yellow? There’s never been a point in time that I’ve made such a horribly wrong decision about dinner that I feel bad. So, I just make the decision and get to work.
The wine questions are my husband’s way of not making a decision. He makes a lot of decisions all day at work so when he gets home, I’m sure he’s finished with decision making. And yet, aren’t we all? Don’t we all get tired of it? And yet, don’t we just keep doing it? It’s a part of life. This is why he’s not allowed to ask the wine questions any more. I know that when he comes home there’s a chance he’ll open a bottle of wine. And I have the ability to say what I want before he makes a decision. And I also know that any wine he chooses is going to be really good. He’s got great taste in wine! So, unless I’m having a particularly “red wine kind of day,” I’m good with whatever he decides. Just like me, he’s never made a horribly wrong decision.
By constantly deciding, we also grow the muscle for that skill set. And this is a muscle you want to have that’s really well exercised. Why? Because anxiety is the result of not making decisions. When we put off decision making or second guessing our decisions the result is that we get anxious about the pending choice. It keeps looping over and over in our minds looking for all of the alternatives, pros and cons to going one way or the other. Our minds don’t like decisions that are pending. It deals much better with decisions that don’t work out than with decisions that aren’t made. Mistakes are easier to handle than never ending decisions.
And remember, not making a decision is still deciding. You’re making a choice not to choose and that is still a choice. There are still consequences. You still have to take responsibility. Might as well just make a decision so you can move on, right?
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